1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic dictionary provided with a learning function.
2. Description of the Prior Art
If an English word is inputted into an electronic dictionary, for instance, an electronic dictionary provided with an English-Japanese dictionary, the electronic dictionary outputs the Japanese word corresponding to the inputted English word, while if an English composition is inputted thereto, it outputs the Japanese composition corresponding to the inputted English composition.
This electronic dictionary provided with an English-Japanese dictionary is designed such that, when an English word is, for instance, inputted to this electronic dictionary, the dictionary retrieves the inputted English word from the memory which stores the English-Japanese dictionary, reads out or outputs the Japanese word corresponding to the retrieved English word and mainly displays the Japanese word on a display device such as a liquid crystal display device or outputs it through audio response or a printer.
Among these electronic dictionaries having such structure, there have been proposed those which are mainly used for the study of English and which are designed so that information such as retrieved English words are selectively stored in a memory means and that an operator can efficiently study English by repeatedly reading out and outputting the information from the memory means.
If an operator stores information such as retrieved English words in the memory means of such a conventional English-Japanese electronic dictionary, the operator must first input, for instance, an English word. The electronic dictionary correspondingly retrieves the inputted English word from the memory and then reads out the Japanese word corresponding to the retrieved English word. Then it outputs the retrieved result on a display device and the information read out is stored in the memory means through a desired instruction means. In this case, it is needed to store the information each time a retrieval operation is performed through a desired instruction means.
Therefore, if the operator performs retrieval operations, but forgets to store or fails in the storage of the retrieved information in the memory means, he must repeat troublesome procedures, i.e., he must again perform the retrieval operation and the storage operation. Moreover, the operator is confronted with accidents that superfluous information is stored and this leads to the storage of unnecessary information in the memory means. To eliminate this problem, there has been proposed a method which comprises the steps of discriminating whether the same information is already stored or not during the storage operation and displaying a message that the information to be stored has already been stored on a display device. However, the discrimination operation and the display of the message require extra processing time and this leads to a substantial reduction of operational efficiency.
In addition, the conventional electronic dictionaries are not equipped with a means for confirming which information among a plurality of information read out through a series of retrieval operations is stored. In order to perform the foregoing confirmation operation, it is, therefore, necessary to again retrieve necessary information and to perform a storage operation to thus make the electronic dictionary display a message that the storage thereof is duplicated. As a result, the conventional electronic dictionaries have low retrieval efficiency and require extra operations of a driving device which leads to consumption of too much electric power.